Basil Feilding, 2nd Earl of Denbigh (1608-28 November 1675) was a Parliamentarian general during the English Civil War.
Biography[]
Basil Feilding was born in 1608, the eldest son of William Feilding, 1st Earl of Denbigh. He graduated from Cambridge in 1622 before joining the House of Lords in 1629. He served in the Dutch Army during the Eighty Years' War, fighting at the siege of 's-Hertogenbosch in 1629 before serving as King Charles I of England's ambassador to Venice from 1634 to 1639. During the English Civil War, he commanded a Parliamentarian regiment of horse at the Battle of Edgehill, during which his father was killed while fighting for the Cavaliers. Feilding became commander-in-chief of the Parliamentary army in Warwickshire on becoming Earl of Denbigh in 1643, but he resigned his command in 1645 after members of Parliament were forced to leave the army. He came to be a lukewarm supporter of the Parliament and supported the Restoration, and he was made a baron by King Charles II of England. He died in 1675.